I recently bought a used PD 106 reserve and in the process of packing it, I noticed on the label it said Made in Honduras. I think the canopy is a 2003 model. What the hell? I'm sure it will fly fine and I inspected it well, but it was a bit startling at first to think that my reserve was made in a third world country. Anyone have any info on PD outsourcing or anything?

I'm not saying the people in Honduras are less capable of sewing than we are, nor is the reserve inferior. I just never knew the reserves were made in Honduras as well. And I wanted some background on this.

PD reserves made in Honduras are good as the PR made in Deland, FL. They are built in Honduras & shipped to PD Deland for final inspection.

Safe Jumping !!!

I believe they are all (except maybe military) made in Honduras. And a fine product they are. I had a customer ask for one in the USA and PD said no, this was 6 years ago so maybe its changed but I dont think it has. my .02 worth

I think PD wrote in Parachuting Magasine Skydiving in 2000 that they would open a factory in Honduras.Because they didnt have eneuf skilled workers in Deland... But j have full confidense that PD have the same quality were ever there product is made..

Conterery to Parachutes de France,witch make there product with low or NO controll at all..

One friend of mine received a NEW Atom harness with the main lift harness bended inside out.. `Where is the last inspection done?? In the dark after smoking herbs on Mauritius?? (Where the factory is located)..

A few years ago at DeWolf's rigging school I had the chance to talk to "Rags" Raghanti from PD. My understanding is that Rags did a lot of the training of the sewing staff in Honduras to insure the same high quality final product. He was teaching the sewing class.

I asked him how long it took to build a parachute. He told me that no single person assembles a parachute. After the panels are cut and sorted for assembly they move from station to station through the facility. The worker at each station only performs one task in the assemble process. For example, the first step is putting the re-inforcement tape on the leading edge.

It wouldn't matter if the parachute was built in Honduras or the USA. Either way it's the same person doing the work. Parachutes are built by people who may have no rigging knowledge what so ever. Generally speaking assembly staff only have to be able to run a sewing machine well and follow the directions for the sewing step they are performing.

I recently bought a used PD 106 reserve and in the process of packing it, I noticed on the label it said Made in Honduras. I think the canopy is a 2003 model. What the hell? I'm sure it will fly fine and I inspected it well, but it was a bit startling at first to think that my reserve was made in a third world country. Anyone have any info on PD outsourcing or anything?

I would say get used to this sort of thing. in 20 years I'll bet half the cars sold in NA will be made in china, we will need to move on to other industries I suppose. For now my gear is from Florida (JumpShack), Tennesse (PA) and Spain (Icarus).......

You are right. When you get paid .05 cents an hour and work your butts off 7 days a week the quality of the product can be questionable. But I guess that if few low quality manufactured reserves slips through the cracks it will be O.K. Some reserves never got ridden anyways. Myself, I will try to get a first world made reserve on my first rig. That is just my opinion. I've done a lot of traveling around the world and I have seen their operations. I do not mind to wear a pair of jeans sew in Bangladesh, but a reserve canopy...

You're in FL, right? Go to your favorite container or canopy manufacturer and see who builds skydiving gear in the US. It's a bunch of people sitting at sewing machines. It's not rocket science. Though you probably don't want to know where the flight critical avionics equipment on most planes is made either...

Alrighty then. I'm convinced. I don't care where is made as long as it works. Hells Bells, we are jumping out of a plane anyways. Why do we care where is made? It adds to the trill of jumping out.

quality can be higher places you would not think of. check out this article......

Toyota Chief believes India more quality-conscious than Japan

Few people connect India to quality. Agreed, India is one of the most looked after markets for brilliant engineers but when it comes to Indian products, you find a lack of demand for quality in consumers. That is why we see cars like Tata Indica and the likes doing so well here. However, the Chairman of Nippon Keidanren & Chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation, Okuda Hiroshi think otherwise.

Hiroshi has just said that he thinks that that the economies of India and Thailand were growing fast because of the focus on quality in manufacturing in these countries. He even believes that India and Thailand would soon overtake Japan if Japanese companies do not pay attention of quality.

Hiroshi said while speaking at the meeting organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII): “Despite appeals at the highest level to pay greater attention to quality Japanese companies are not showing much interest in winning the Deming Prize while the quality movement was spreading fast in India and many companies are winning the coveted Deming Prize”.

Toyota is one of the biggest makers of automobiles in the world and is on way to overtake GM in the next couple of years. The company is known for their reliable and high quality products worldwide.